A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Criminals have been promoted: Kofi Annan became UN Secretary General, Madeleine Allbright became Secretary of State! Susanne Rice, Under Secretary of State, and many others. The point is : when you kill only one man or woman, you are sent to prison for your entire live.
Full interview on the link here below:
- A Spanish judge has indicted 40 current or former Rwandan military officers
- Men were indicted for several counts of genocide and human rights abuses
- More than 4 million Rwandans died or disappeared during the 1990s
- The majority of the victims were Hutu Rwandan refugees or Congolese civilians
I think the message speaks for itself. There is more to this story than most people realize. It’s only a matter of time though.
From Demonizing to Fighting through Betrayal
© By Kanyarwanda Veritas
on 22 January 2009
Demonizing the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) and attacking them instead of politically addressing the DRC-Rwanda crisis is a cowardly strategy.
The FDLR are a political organization. 
Their global political objectives since their creation are:
- Establishment of the Truth on the Rwandan Nightmare;
- Real Democracy;
- Independent and fair Justice;
- Lasting Peace;
- Real Reconciliation of the Rwandan people, and Harmonious Development.
The FDLR created a self-defense Force in order to protect the Rwandan refugees remaining in the DRC against the programmed extermination carried out by the Rwandan RPF regime since October 1996. Indeed, the extermination of those refugees was one of the aims of the 2nd war the Rwandan regime launched against the DRC since the 2nd August 1998.
The FDLR also intended to be the voice of the voiceless, among them the survivors of the Rwandan genocide despised and neglected by the RPF regime, and the victims of oppression, injustice, discrimination, assassination, disappearance and abduction within Rwanda, their country.
The FDLR also established the cooperation with the DRC government of Laurent Desire Kabila in order to thwart the hegemonic and expansionist campaign of Paul Kagame.
When they fought side by side with the FARDC until the 2nd war that was ended in 2002, nobody did accuse them of harming the Congolese population while the RPF army of Paul Kagame was massacred the Congolese civilians at Makobola, Katogota, Mwenga, etc.
However, Laurent Desire Kabila betrayed them when he accepted to play Paul Kagame game and signed the Agreement of Lusaka calling them “negative forces”. So, to defend his regime was a negative action?
All in all, Joseph Kabila betrayed them when he signed the then agreement of Pretoria on July 30, 2002 and chased away their leadership out of Kinshasa.
He betrayed them for the 2nd time, when he signed the Declaration of Nairobi calling them “forces génocidaires”.
Are the FDLR who killed the 5 millions of Congolese people? Doesn't Joseph Kabila know who massacred them?
So, he is betraying the FDLR for the 3rd time, allowing the Rwandan army to finish the job with the genocide against Hutu Rwandan refugees that has been initiated by him since October 1996.
The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups have Statutes and they diffuse them. They have no plan to harm anybody from the Rwandan people. On the contrary, they took the commitment of defending the interests of the survivors without discrimination, those survivors that are despised and neglected by the RPF regime as above-mentioned.
The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups are not the cause of the Congolese crisis, but the consequence of the Rwandan nightmare which was created by the RPF since October 1st, 1990 a tragedy that was extended to the DRC by the same Paul Kagame. So, the cause of both nightmares is the policy and the bloodthirsty strategy planed, coordinated by Paul Kagame.
The Rwandan armed groups are from refugees who are the consequence of the 1990-1994 Rwandan war, a tragedy created to profit Paul Kagame. To make it clear, The FDLR and other Rwandan armed groups were created in order to defend Rwandan refugee survivors after it was clear their extermination and other ethnic cleansings were and remain on the Paul Kagame's agenda and one of the prior motivations of the invasion and incursions of the DRC by Paul Kagame as it has been explained.
The Rwandan refugees are globally presented by the RPF and its lobby as criminals or fugitives who fled the country from justice after their participation in the Rwandan genocide. However, there is no denying they are the result of the Rwandan Tragedy, which was planed, provoked and executed by General Paul Kagame.
When the RPF resumed the war on 7th April 1994, it also attacked again the camps of the 1.000.000 displaced people who were at the door of Kigali since May 1993, these internal camps were attacked and destroyed by RPF in February 1993 in Byumba Prefecture. All that mass of people took direction of the centre fleeing massacres, and later, they were found in the western region of Rwanda. They were joined by new Internal displaced people (IDPs) who fled at each advance, killings and massacres carried out by RPF. Almost 2.000.000 persons crossed the border to seek asylum in the DRC. Rwandans from the Eastern region of Rwanda about 600.000 people fled to Tanzania and those from the southern region circa 100.000 fled to Burundi.
So, even if one or another can be individually culprit, THERE IS NO WAY we can generalize and say that all refugees who by chance survived from RPF massacres and approximately 1.000.000 of displaced people throughout the country starting with those who earlier left Byumba to be at the door of Kigali in April 1994 were criminals. To these refugees and IDPs you can add those who did not leave their homes to flee justice as RPF propaganda and lobby reaffirm they were criminals fleeing justice and not killings and mass-murders of LDF/RPF/RPA/army.
The other party of 100.000 people who were fleeing to Burundi were attacked over there, hundreds of thousands from them were killed and others were forcibly repatriated by RPF in 1995. Those who were in the DRC were also attacked by RPF since October 1996; some of them were massacred within the refugees camps; others were forcibly repatriated to Rwanda and tens of thousands of them got killed while many others were pursued and massacred in the Congolese forests in 1997.
The UN Commission of investigation reported that at least 200.000 refugees were killed. Other sources reported that more than 380.000 refugees were massacred. The survivors resisted their extermination by the troops of Paul Kagame and James Kabarebe in the eastern DRC, and now Joseph Kabila betrays them to exterminate them and survivors to be repatriated them by force.
There is no denying at all that the Rwandan refugees do not return to Rwanda because of injustice. The RPF members who killed their parents and relatives within Rwanda and throughout the DRC are STILL unpunished for all crimes they committed against Hutu refugees, parents and rleatives of those now became FDLR soldiers. So, looking at conditions in which returnees are in Rwanda, they CANNOT accuse the killers (THOSE WHO ACTUALLY RUN THE COUNTRY) of their parents and relatives, a situation that is bloody OBVIOUS.
Paul Kagame himself declared that the RPF did not kill any body, and no one can judge its members. That means the Hutu who were killed by the RPF are not human beings but insects. Still now, Hutu ethnic members are forbidden to commemorate the death of their relatives and friends killed by the RPF. People and especially the returnees continue to be arbitrarily arrested and heavily sentenced by the courts Gacaca.
At least 4 senior officers who went back with the former chief of staff of the FDLR, Major General Paul Rwarakabije in 2003 were arrested and presently are detained in prisons. Recently Brigadier Seraphin Bizimungu known as Amani who voluntarily got repatriated and his father in law were sentenced to life in prison. The abductions and disappearances continue. Even if the death penalty was officially abolished, the extrajudicial executions did not stop.
The ICTR Arusha refused the transfer of its prisoners to Kigali by the Prosecutor because the Rwandan judicial system is not clean and fair.
The FDLR were put on the list of terrorist organizations in order to demonize and to discredit them before the International Community, and to counter them on the Rwandan political scene, but not because they are really terrorists.
They cannot be accused of the assassination of the Tourists among them Americans in the Park of Bwindi in March 1999, because at that time they did not yet integrate members from ALIR which was accused of that crime. However, the former commander of ALIR at that time, Major General Paul Rwarakabije was received and integrated in the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF).
Still, he is free! However, if the tourists were really killed by the elements from ALIR, who is responsible rather than General Paul Rwarakabije who could have ordered that assassination? And if the FDLR had a hidden agenda to “resume the genocide”, that might be General Paul Rwarakabije who conceived it as the former chief of staff. It's also bloody obvious!
Then, if the FDLR had really that evil intention, how Kigali could have received him and integrated him, whereas Kigali made that propaganda since he was the chief of staff in the Congo? That is for sure and purely an act of demonizing the FDLR, no more no less!
The FDLR are demonized because they contributed so much to thwart the settlement of a satellite regime in the DRC by the RPF and its allies.
The FDLR collaborated with the President Laurent Desire Kabila as above-mentioned, because one of the objectives of the 2nd Rwandan invasion of the DRC since the 2nd August 1998 was the extermination of the refugees remaining within the DRC.
Indeed, since November 1998 the FDLR have been the main obstacle to Kigali as the biggest allied Force engaged on the ground in the DRC. Their resistance gave to Laurent Desire Kabila and Joseph Kabila the time and the possibility of negotiating the peace.
The Self-defense Forces of the Rwandan refugees deployed in the Eastern DRC (North-Kivu and South-Kivu) with the local combatants Mayi Mayi resistedthe occupation of the RPF and his backed rebellion RCD/Goma. The Forces deployed on the internal frontline were engaged on the first line, while the Congolese Forces and the official allied Forces kept the second line. They countered the advance of the tandem RPF-RCD/Goma and the MLC of Jean Pierre Bemba, on the following axes:
- Axis Gbadolite-Kotakoli-Kakuma ( Province of Equator North);
- Axis Gbadolite-Businga- Karawa-Gemena (Province of Equator-North);
- Axis Mbandaka- Bokungu-Boende-Ikela (Province of Equator-South);
- Axis Mbandaka-Basankusu and Basankusu-Befale (Province of Equator-North);
- Axis Mbujimayi-Kabinda (Province of Oriental Kassai);
- Axis Manono-Kiambi (Province of Katanga);
- Axis Kamina-Kabalo-Nyunzu (Province of Katanga);
- Axis Poweto, Cantonnier-Pepa-Kapona (Province of Katanga).
Joseph Kabila was saved at Poweto by the FDLR, when all his colleagues generals, among them his closest John Numbi, abandoned him. Laurent Desire Kabila wanted to chase all of them from the Army. Joseph Kabila interceded, and his father sent them to study in Zimbabwe as punishment. What is that ingratitude of Joseph Kabila to betray the FDLR which saved him and to continue to work with the dandy John Numbi!
Since 2002, the official end of the Rwando-congolese 2nd war, the Rwandan armed groups protect the refugees against the attacks of the disguised troops of Paul Kagame put under the command of General Laurent Nkunda and General Bosco Ntaganda both wanted for the crimes they committed respectively in Kisangani and in Ituri.
The Rwandan armed groups within the DRC never harm the Congolese Tutsi-Banyamulenge as an ethnic group that General Nkunda pretended to defend. General Nkunda did not give any report where the FDLR were targeting Banyamulenge. Instead, Nkunda declared in 2006 that he will fight as long as the FDLR threaten the Rwandan Interests.
Thus, General Nkunda defended the Rwandan interests in the DRC and not the Tutsi-Banyamulenge. But he fought against the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) instead of targeting the FDLR, and made the political claims. Because Nkunda was not serving the Rwandan interests and targeted the DRC instead of the FDLR, Paul Kagame made a bargain with Joseph Kabila to remove Nkunda, and Joseph Kabila allowed the Rwandan Army to enter into the DRC in order to fight the FDLR.
Instead of harming and exterminating the Hutu Rwandan refuges whose big majority were minors in 1994 and who are the consequence of the hegemonic and bloodthirsty strategy of Paul Kagame, the right diagnostic of the regional crisis consists in treating the cause which is Paul Kagame. When the cause is deleted, the disease is hailed! The very right medicine is a political and peaceful solution through the Inter-Rwandans dialogue.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
PO Box 11001
Chicago, IL 60611
312.498.9279
www.hrrfoundation.org
Paul Rusesabagina
Founder and President
January 26, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500-0001
It was particularly uplifting to hear you declare your deep compassion for the people of poor nations, pledging “to work alongside them to make their farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds”. My foundation, the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, is at the forefront of this fight, especially in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
- Last week, a reported 3,000 Tutsi RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) troops crossed into the DRC to start a military campaign with the public purpose of forcefully disarming Hutu rebels of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda). This comes under a purported peace deal between Rwanda, the DRC and the remaining factions of the CNDP (National Congress for the Defense of the People) Tutsi rebel movement based in eastern Congo, which is supported by the Rwandan government. In fact, this is merely the latest step in the conflict between Hutu and Tutsi elites going on since before Rwanda’s independence in 1962, and which led to the genocide in 1994.
- Friday’s arrest of Laurent Nkunda, indicted war criminal and the notorious leader of the rebel CNDP group in the Congo, was good news for people in the Congo and the world.
Problematically, some see this as the end of the conflict in the Congo. In fact, it is simply
another move on the chess board by the Rwandan government, who apparently have
arrested their former ally when his actions became too embarrassing and brought unwanted international attention to the crisis. Nkunda’s arrest absolutely does not end this crisis. In fact, if the Rwandan government has its way this may now turn international attention away from the area just as the Rwandan army, aided by the Congolese, are engaging in another mass attack on Hutu refugees. - While there are certainly some armed rebels among the Hutus in eastern Congo, including some who should be tried for their roles in the 1994 genocide, most of the people in the region are innocent refugees. They fled to the Congo during the genocide in 1994, and since then have been joined by those fleeing from Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-elite government in Rwanda. These refugees rightfully fear for their safety if they return home, but are now merely political pawns in eastern Congo. And now these innocents are about to be attacked by the combined might of the Rwandan and Congolese forces. The well armed militias may be the “official” targets, but an enormous number of innocent people will be caught in the middle. And the deaths of these innocents will NOT be an accident.
- International reports are clear that most militia members currently in the region were not even alive, or were at most children during the genocide in 1994. Unfortunately, given the ongoing political situation in Rwanda, many have since joined the militia as their only hope for a better life. According to the Rwandan government, only Tutsis count as “survivors” of the genocide, even though countless Hutus were also victims in the conflict. Thus if you have two Hutu parents, you cannot receive an education or any other benefits in Rwanda.
Combined with other government policies, such as the recent change in official language
from French to English, anyone with a Hutu background is an estranged minority at best in Rwanda today. - According to a BBC News report on January 21, 2009, “The UN and aid agencies have
raised concerns about the threat posed to civilians on the ground” by this military escalation. BBC News also reported that the UN mission in the country (MONUC) peacekeepers and aid workers have been barred by Congolese troops from entering war zones. This is disturbingly reminiscent of a similar operation in 1995 at the Kibeho camp of internally displaced people inside Rwanda, where the RPF Rwandan army butchered more than 4,000 innocent people with UN forces barred from intervening. - Your swift executive action and call for peace will carry enormous weight as one of the early major decisions of your Presidency. It can stop the fateful march to confrontation and have an immediate impact in preventing the death of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent Congolese civilians caught in the cross-fire of the two battling armies.
- Sweden and the Netherlands, two of the four largest sources of foreign aid for Rwanda,
have already taken action by cutting off their aid in response to this crisis. There have also been calls for additional international troops to support MONUC, from countries who can actually be neutral and help the innocent civilians in the area. The United States can take a new and highly effective leadership role by supporting these efforts, along with placing pressure on the Rwandan regime. - You probably already know that unending wars in the DRC in the last decade have claimed the lives of more than 5 million people, the most in any conflict since WWII. You probably also know that armed violence in the whole Great Lakes region of Africa started in 1990 when current Rwandan President General Paul Kagame made his debut on the international political scene with his RPF rebel army invasion of Rwanda from
Uganda. Since then, close to an estimated 10 million people in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC, including 4 Presidents, have been killed as an immediate result of this armed violence. With United States leadership, this insanity can be brought to a peaceful and democratic end. Without it, innocents and combatants will continue to die. - Finally, Mr. President, I would like to pledge to you my unconditional allegiance in this fight for peace, especially in the Great Lakes region of Africa. You may already know that I am actively striving to garner support for an internationally instituted TRC – a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Rwanda. While the Rwandan government shows the world museums and claims that the effects of the 1994 genocide are in the past, this is most certainly not the case. While the Rwandan government trumpets an economic miracle, this is not shared by the vast majority of the Rwandan people.
this great country, but at your earliest convenience it would be an immense pleasure and
privilege to share with you in person the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation’s initiative
for peace and justice.
Mr. President, our brothers and sisters are being massacred unnecessarily in Central Africa and I, for one, cannot remain indifferent.
Please allow me again to pay a vibrant tribute to your historic inauguration as President of the United States of America.
Most respectfully yours,
Founder and President
Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation
- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
- Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (All)
- US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
- US Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid
- US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
- US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice
- UN Special Envoy in the Great Lakes Region Olusegun Obasanjo
- EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso
- AU Commission President Jean Ping
L’Armée Patriotique Rwandaise de Paul Kagame a massacré les hutu au Rwanda dans des camps pourtant gardés par les casques bleues de l’ONU à Kibeho au Rwanda .
Quand ils se sont sauvés au Congo, Kagame les a pourchassés là bas aussi.Il a poursuivi les survivants des réfugiés hutus dans les forêts du Congo, et là aussi il les a décimés.
Au cours de son agression, des millions des personnes sont morts et pourtant la plupart d'entre elles était des civils. Pourtant la communauté internationale ne l'a jamais dénoncée.
Les Donateurs occidentaux, qui fournissent 70 pour cent du budget du Rwanda à peine ont murmuré. Ils se taisent quand Kagame emprisonne ses adversaires, assassine ou abat les personnes qu’il est censé protéger en tant que président.
Au moment où nous vous parlons, les Réfugiés Hutus sont malades, fatigués de la Communauté Internationale, incapable de les défendre. C'est pourquoi, il est indispensable pour les FDLR d' être toujours prêts pour défendre les réfugiés Hutus encore sur le sol congolais où le diable les a poursuivis.
FDLR is fighting to defend Hutu refugees and justify its very existence.
We are not fighting to attack Rwanda but to defend them. Kagame's army massacred Hutus in Rwanda.
When they fled to Congo, it massacred them here. It massacred them in UN displaced camp Kibeho, in UN refugee camps. It chased Hutu survivors into the forest, and it massacred them there.
To this day, Rwanda is killing Rwandan refugees in Congo. In the process of its aggression, millions of people die and most of them are civilians. Yet the international community has never denounced it.
Western donors, who supply 70 per cent of Rwanda's budget, barely murmure. Nor do they baulk when Paul Kagame locks up his opponents, assassinate or slaughter people he's supposed to protect as a president.
As we speak, Hutu refugees are sick and tired of the world communtiy failing to defend them. That's why the FDLR's obligation is to stand ready to defend Hutu refugees yet on the Congolese soil where evil has come upon them.
Develop skills of critical thinkingInfamous Copy/paste journalists motto: spread the word even if you aren’t sure your source of information tells you the truth of event…
In these circumstances and under the incentives of the law, it would be prudent for journalists not to take these sorts of risks, particularly when they underestimate the situation and losses of thousands of killed innocent people. It's a terrific crime not to tell the world how Paul Kagame and his RDF conquerors marching on the Congolese soil are killing innocent people only because they seem to be (apparently and physically) or be born Hutus no matter who they are, Congolese or Rwandan refugees.
How many people got killed in the Congo and not reported by those corrupt journalists? Hutu survivors have been subjected to all kind of horrifying ill-treatments compared to what Europeans experienced during the Nazi occupation.
Be that as it may, and regardless of my effort to draw the world decision makers, those criminal media are larger and have greater scope; they can report news and rumors more rapidly and there’s no problem for them even though millions of people got slaughtered. They will say they did the job, meaning spread up the word they’ve been told to. In short, those stupid or corrupt journalists simply require less effort. They just go into copy-paste mode and, without thinking about consequences, encourage killings of the targeted innocent people through ethnic cleansings.
To sum up, such western journalists actions discredit and dishonor the very concept of Journalism. The one-sidedness and overt RPF and pro RPF media propaganda found some of those countries and on Internet is absolutely unthinkable. It is obviously not possible to present all points of view. However each opinion aired is given as the view of one person or representative of one of the sides involved. The newsreader often recapitulates, but does not add any personal comment or judgment.
And on the subject of criticism, it is worth remembering that copy-paste should NOT fall within the duties of a journalist.
Do they think on the reader’s ability to distinguish truth from lies? Quite honestly I have no great optimism about that when I remember what kind of reports made Christian Amanpour of CNN, Linda from BBC, Collette Braekmann of Le Soir and many other so called journalists shaming the treasured job. They knew and still know they spread views which I consider not true but worth lobbying. The current information we receive from those criminal media remind me the Soviet era which foisted their Truth on everybody.
What is more worrying is that they are well aware (so are we, for that matter) which channels they can change to, which newspapers they can read so as to not hear or read unpalatable opinions.
In any case I have doubts as to whether we can emerge victorious from that information war if we use the same tactics. When you hear more or less the same clichés, slogans and accusations from both sides, then you either believe the first you hear, or make your choice on some other, usually subjective, grounds.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
The Days That Don't Disappear
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
=> Howard Zinn
For the 3rd time, Paul Kagame chooses Genocide : almost two decades-long ethnic cleansing inside and outside Rwanda.
***
PAUL KAGAME RUNOFF AN EARLIER TEST FOR OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION
- THERE IS NO DOUBT RPF government during the Bushism era has become the world’s latest sovereign to use genocide as a way to solve its problems with the troublesome majority: Hutu ethnic members.
- A Survivor and eyewithness speak out on the RPF horrors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
January, 1997.The majority of Rwandan refugees did not return back to Rwanda: 450,000 at most returned back to their homeland, compared to 1,103,000 refugees. Most of the returnees come from Mugunga and Kibumba camps and the head count is between 300,000 and 400,000 refugees. Given the strategic nature of the repatriation, the media from all over the world were invited to film this "massive repatriation" in order to force the cancellation of the international intervention force, which had been very difficult to obtain.
2. Rwandan refugees are not fleeing combats: they are fleeing massacres. The operation that is taking place in Zaire has all the ingredients of a new genocide. Large mass graves are found all over around Goma.
Women, children lie together with elderly and men, hands attached on their back, a bullet in their head. According to estimates in Goma, several hundreds of thousands of refugees have been killed since the beginning of the conflict: most of them were massacred, others died either by starvation or by exhaustion. Stories of massive massacres are being reported from Masisi and Walikale in particular. For the Tutsi rebels, Rwandan refugees are a military target.
3. Rwandan refugees are not the only ones targeted by these massacres. Zairian Hutu populations are also targeted. Everywhere in eastern Zaire, but particularly in Goma, disappearances are not only common but also on the rise, and every influential person of Hutu background is enlisted on a "red list". In all the Masisi region, massive massacres of civilians are taking place.
INTRODUCTION
On Monday January 26, 1997, two unknowns came at my house near Goma. One of them was in military uniform and was carrying an automatic riffle; the other was wearing a civilian uniform, but was carrying a revolver under his shirt, a fire arm usually reserved for a higher rank officer. They asked to see me in person, referring to me by name, but my guard was smart enough to say that I was absent. They said they will be back in one hour.
There was no time to waste, I assembled a few items in rush, and managed to run away, through a ICRC (Red Cross) vehicle that carried me across the border to Gisenyi. I just escaped an attempt murder. Three Spanish World Doctors were less lucky in Ruhengeri on January 19, 97; they lost their lives.
Like myself, they probably knew more than they should, they had seen with their very eyes a lot, or at least somebody thought they had seen a lot...
The events succinctly related in this chronicle are factual information that I have observed personally. Given the sensitive nature of these facts, the reader will understand that they can only be revealed under the protection of anonymity. I hope everybody will understand that lives are in danger
1- HOW MANY RWANDAN REFUGEES ARE STILL PRESENT IN ZAIRE?
Since the beginning of the conflict, there have been a war in numbers concerning the number of refugees still present in Zaire. The "rebels" state since the beginning that the quasi-totality of refugees returned back home; the only people who failed to return are the "Interahamwe" and the "ex-FAR" and the genociders in Zaire (it is therefore legitimate to chase them); Kigali states that they are more than 500,000 to have crossed the border.
This war of numbers is strategic: one hand, it is aimed at preventing any foreign intervention in favor of the remaining refugees (why intervene if there are no more refugees in Zaire?); one the other hand, it is aimed at attracting the maximum of foreign aid on Kigali, in favor of "reconstruction"...
What is really the number of refugees still present in Zaire? Let us simply use the official numbers of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
a. Refugees of Bukavu region: 316,000 persons distributed among different camps: INERA, KASHUSHA, NYANGEZI, PANZI, KALEHE, KATANA, BIRAVA, IDJWI NORD (Bugarula) et SUD (Kashofu);
b- Refugees from Goma region: 715,991 persons scattered in different camps: MUGUNGALAC VERT, KIBUMBA, KATALE, other camps (MINOVA, SAKE,...)
c- Refugees from Uvira region: 180,144 persons Rwandans: 71,828 Burundians: 117,316
TOTAL GENERAL (Uvira, Bukavu, Goma): 1,221,483.
Let us say: 1,220,000 refugees (Rwandans and Burundians), present in Zaire in October 1996, at the beginning of the war.
Not knowing the whereabouts of 117,000 Burundian refugees, I will retain 1,103,000 Rwandan refugees .
Of 1,103,000 Rwandan refugees, how many did cross the border back to Rwanda?
Since the beginning of the war, there have been only one massive movement of refugees back to Rwanda: the return home from Mugunga refugee camp, located at 7 KM (4.5 miles) from Goma
Mugunga had become the "world largest refugee camp"; I visited Mugunga camp one day before Goma takeover, Wednesday October 30. I saw the arrival of refugees who were fleeing from Kibumba camp. These refugee camps had been shelled the previous day from Rwanda, by the "rebels".
I saw many wounded in a relatively serious condition, some hit by shotguns, others scraped by bomb fragments. It would be impossible to accurately state their number, which was increasing as more refugees were coming, the wounded being sent in different treatment centers of the camp. I saw around 100 wounded refugees, in only one center that I managed to visit. It would be difficult to know how many people were killed in Kibumba camp.
All in all, there were 500,000 persons at the Mugunga site, originating from Mugunga camp itself, and Lac Vert (300,000), and from Kibumba camp (197,000). The refugees who crossed the border on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday November 15, 16 and 17, 1996 came from this group.
I saw a relatively important column of refugees on Friday 15, and in Goma, we estimate that 50,000 persons crossed the border that day. The next day, I saw an extraordinary crowd of refugees on the same road, all day long. That Saturday, on November 16, 200,000 persons probably crossed the border. On Sunday 17, the flow of refugees was again less important, similar to Friday's: we estimate that 50,000 persons crossed the border that day.
All in all, according to our estimates, between 300 and 350,000 refugees returned back home in three days, which is a lot of people, compared to 500,000 who were living in Mugunga refugee camp a few days earlier. This estimate is comparable to the ones produced by a well-known medical NGO.
At this point, four observations must be made:
1. I did not see anybody cross the border but modest families, families of peasants. I did not see any of the intellectual families that I knew in Mugunga. Didn't these educated families walk toward Masisi instead?.2. X, Y, and Z, school teachers in Goma, who fled along with their families toward Matanda, on the Masisi road, during Goma takeover, told me that they saw, "in great numbers", refugees walking across Matanda, from Mugunga camp toward Masisi.
3. The operation "Mugunga Liberation" took place in front of world cameras, as the last dispositions for the then imminent international intervention were being prepared. Journalists, up until then very limited in their action and movement (they were routinely given visas only for 2 to 4 hours) were given free ride to report on this special event, visibly with the goal to impress the international public opinion.
The "massive return of refugees" did in fact cancel out the military intervention.
4. Within the gigantic crowd that crossed back to Rwanda, there were very few people from Katale and Kahindo camps.
They only appeared toward the end of the cortege on Sunday, Nov. 17, 96. They were visibly very much weakened by a very long trip and they were vulnerable. For example, we picked up a young woman who did not weigh more than 30 KG (90 lb.), clearly very exhausted. She died a couple of days later.
The following weeks, very small groups of refugees would be escorted at the border posts of Bukavu (Ruzizi) and Goma ("Grande Barriere") by the High Commission for Refugees (HCR). They were mainly women, children, and elderly. In all, 80,000 refugees were counted
Brief, 450,000 refugees at most crossed the border back to Rwanda, from a total of 1,103,000,000 persons. 653,000 refugees did not go back to Rwanda, and they are therefore in Zaire.
It appears that between 200 and 250,000 refugees have finally made it to the camps of TINGI-TINGI, AMISI, and SHABUNDA.
At least 400,000 Rwandan refugees are missing and other hundreds of thousands have been butchered by RPF (without counting 117,000 Burundians): what did happen to them?
2- ARE THE RWANDAN REFUGEES FLEEING FIGHTING OR MASSACRES
If it was just for fighting, Rwandan refugees wouldn't have any more reason to flee than Zairian populations: Rwandan refugees are fleeing massacres that are specifically targeting them from "Tutsis "rebels", from RPF led by Paul Kagame, known that time for killing Hutus with the aim of decrease their numbers in Rwanda and outside of IT.
For Tutsis "rebels", Hutu refugees constitute a military target.
The "rebels" dialectic goes like this: refugees who did not return back to Rwanda are "genociders". The intellectuals, for example, the staff of the administration, property owners, successful business men, particularly those coming from cities, were afraid to return.
The great number of mass graves attest the systematic intent to annihilate refugees, and the fact that they have been considered as a military target since the beginning of the war. These mass graves are everywhere, but they are always carefully hidden and located in area of difficult access. It is obviously extremely dangerous to be found by "rebels" in area where mass graves are located: it means immediate execution.
I saw near Mugunga, at one hour walking distance in the North, three mass graves of around 10, 12 and 30 bodies each. Bodies included men, women, sometimes holding babies on their back, children and elderly.
Each one of them had a bullet in the head, including the babies.
In Kibumba, I saw at the deep end of the camp, on the Rwandan border, in the small wood which serve as the border line, metric piles of skeletons. There was three such sites, containing fifty (50) to one hundred (100) skeletons each. There too, the bodies had one bullet in the head. A methodical search would surely allow the discovery of other sites, but who would risk his life in such a dangerous place?
On November 26, in the forest North of Sake, on the pathway which goes down the hill, after five days of walk from Kahindo camp, (on the Rutshuru road), I saw a dying man, abandoned on makeshift stretcher. This man had deep wounds of machete all around his head.
Through one open wound, one could see his brain. We asked him who did that to him, and he said, "it is the Tall Men"; we asked him where was his family; and he answered that his wife and all his children had been killed with machetes and aces used a few days earlier in the forest, by the "rebels", who wanted to prevent them from reaching Mugunga.
His brothers, very weak and exhausted, could not carry his stretcher no more, and abandoned him near the road. Farther North, we found the remaining of a camp that appeared to have been abandoned in hurry. A pregnant woman was lying on the ground, a bullet in the head. She must have been unable to run away.
There were bodies scattered all the way along the pathway that leads to Kahindo and Katale camps. On December 24, two "rebels" kidnapped two young Zairian Hutus from village R. They came back two days later, after being severely tortured. They have now became the guides for between 70 and 100 Tutsi "rebels" (one pick-up truck and one big transport troop vehicle) heavily armed.
In one incident, they took them on the site of three little camps hidden in the forest. Result: "Waliwauwa wotw, wale wakimbizi, wote kabis, hakuna hata mmoja aliyepona" (they killed all of them, really all, those refugees, not even one survived), the "guide" told me when he came back
It was probably three little camps of around 100 persons each. Many refugees from Katale are still hidden in the Virunga park forest, blocked at the entry and the exit by the mass graves and the military operations.
One of those operations took place on January 30, 1996. Two hundreds fifty (250) "rebels" soldiers were brought at Katale camp, at the entry of the forest, to have it cleaned up
It is difficult to estimate the number of refugees still hidden there, but there are more than 300.000 refugees between Katale and Kahindo. It is estimated that between 30 and 80.000 among them have been able to reach Rwanda.
Many die in the forest, where they have been feeding themselves for months now with plants and drinking rain water, when it is raining. We met, for example, a young lady absolutely exhausted and dehydrated. She could make it no more, and despite our efforts, she died in our hands.
Farther North, under a cabin made of branches, lays the body of a woman, dead of exhaustion, while giving birth. On her feet, the body of a four years old child lays, no doubt hers, dead of loneliness.
Helping those people is considered by the "rebels" as helping the enemy, an active support to the Interahamwe. It has been suggested that the refugees who have stayed in the Zairian forests are after all in their natural milieu. I can testify, for having been there tens of times, that it is false.
The Zairian forests of Goma are established on a volcanic land, where one can not find any source of water, nor animals, nor any kind of food. To condemn those refugees to stay in the forests is to condemn them to death. Mr. Boutros-Ghali has talked of "genocide by hunger"
On December 17, 1996, in the weekly confidential meeting of the responsible of the NGOs, EUB, the local association that is in charge of collecting the dead on the main roads (Goma/Sake; Goma/Rutshuru) announced that it had already collected 6537 dead bodies, among them 2743 for the sole town of Goma.
EUB has not the mandate of searching for bodies in the bush
On the road Kibumba/Rutshuru, after crossing the little forest after Munigi, one is extremely distressed (it is then necessary to close all the windows) by a terrible smell of dead bodies in decomposition.
Days and weeks pass , but the smell doesn't disappear, as if the corpses were "renewed" as the time passes. That road is the only one that goes to Katale. The refugees who take the risk to take that road by foot to go back to Rwanda are diverted to that forest and executed. Soldiers are continually patrolling at that place.
A tutsi "rebel "did not try to hide it; on a road barrage at Rumangabo; he told to me on December 19: "those refugees have the pest, when I meet them in the bushes, I have to eliminate them".
The same day, on December 19, on the road from Tongo, heading to Kalengera, I saw a small pick-up truck carrying refugees, around twenty of them, with four armed "rebels". The refugees were shouting and crying. Our car was following theirs. At the little junction from where the old road goes to right, now cut off by the lava flow, the pick-up went right, to the cul-de-sac.
We took the left, heading toward the asphalted road Rutshuru-Goma: those people were going to the discreet place of their execution; it was about 18 o'clock.
At Katale camp, at the level of the river at the left side, after about 30 minutes of walk past the camp, at the entry of the bush on the West side, I saw many large mass graves
The first contained about 200 persons, all killed with an automatic riffle. The second, a bit further, bigger than the first one, with 300 bodies in it, some rolled in sheeting (for the transport?), followed by 2 more others of the same importance.
Many women and children, all of them shot in the head. Men, killed with a bullet in the head also, have their arms attached on the back. Our guide, a refugee, assures us that two other mass graves were located not far from there, and that much larger mass graves, with "thousands" of dead bodies, were located even further at many hours of walk, in the forest. He offered to lead us there. Unfortunately, we had to refuse, for obvious security reasons.
On the lava plain behind Katale and Kahindo camps, heading to the West, in the opposite direction to the Rwanda side, one can see thousands of skeletons, mowed down with a machine gun while they were fleeing, and covered of sheeting that have been burnt in the attempt to make those remainings disappear.
I met at the hospital a refugee who was being treated from six impacts of bullets in the back. That man had been left for dead among dead bodies; he had been able to scramble up to a NGO car and had been evacuated to Goma. He told me that tutsi "rebels" have rounded his "quarter" in Katale camp; they separated men from women, ordered them to lay down face on the ground, and opened fire with machine guns. How many died, he can not tell, but a quarter in the camps was home to two (2) to three (3) thousand refugees. This happened in the beginning of November.
I met, again at Mugunga, a man was keeping a little diary of his wandering since the attack on Katale camp to that of Mugunga. That testimony has also been collected by a well known medical NGO.
The man tells how they have left Katale under the nourished fire of heavy and light machines guns, how they fled to the forest in the panic. The forest, where again the "rebels" were waiting for them; back to Katale, the "rebels" again, and this up to three times before his refugee group was flown over by a small reconnaissance plane.
We also found North of Mugunga, at about 5 hours walking distance on the road heading in the North to Katale camp, in the forest behind the Nyiragongo volcano, a small camp of about fifty refugees. There were among them 17 persons who survived the massacres at Kahindo camp
The 3500 persons who made up their quarter were rounded by soldiers.
At first, they acted friendly, and offered to escort the refugees back to Rwanda. They indeed escorted them, but lead them in the opposite direction to Rwanda. As soon as they reached the bush, the "rebels" opened fire, killing them all, except those 17 refugees, who were now scared to death, and were not willing to go back in Rwanda.
Among those people was a little boy who had lost his 7 brothers and his parents in that killing
At Tongo, I met a local farmer who told me that one month prior to the beginning of the invasion, Tutsi soldiers were already in Tongo, and were paying, in US dollars, local farmers to dig deep and well hidden ditches (soon to be mass graves) in the bush.
In a Goma health center, I met a young girl 12 years of age, severely burned all around her body, half of the body. She just arrived from Bukavu. During their fleeing, her camp had been attacked: her and her mother were rolled in plastic sheeting to which the assailants put fire. That is how her mother died.
On December 24, I met in Goma another Rwandan young boy, from the group which had fled initially fled to Idjwi island (in lake Kivu), Bugarula camp. They escaped across lake Kivu in a boat toward Nyabibwe shore. Too bad for them: the "rebels" were waiting for them. The "rebels" drowned his parents, brothers, and sisters with their own hands. He is the only one who survived by swimming, and later joining other refugees in Goma. He was on his way back to Rwanda.
We helped repatriate refugees from Bukavu, Sake and Goma. One striking observation that we agreed upon, all the non-governmental agencies present on the field, is that there are only women, elderly, and young girls among these refugees.
Later, it was explained to me that in Nyabibwe, "rebels" separated males from females among the refugees before allowing them out of the forest: all the boys, age 10 and above, were massacred; only women and elderly were granted to leave. This was confirmed by the "Canal Afrique" newspaper which, in its January 23 edition reported that: "among the refugees who went back to Rwanda, only 30% are men (elderly)".
In Bukavu district, at Burhale, in early November, the clergyman Jean-Claude Buhendwa, a young priest Mushi, ordained in August of the same year (1996), was gunned down as he was trying to position himself between "rebels" and a group of refugees, essentially made of families which had fled from Kashusha camp and took Ngweshe direction.
The Red Cross counted 600 victims, but another priest who was at the scene, but managed to hide in a banana plantation, said many more people were killed, probably more than 2000. Local farmers were also requisitioned to bury the maximum number of cadavers in mass graves digged expeditiously, before the arrival of the Red Cross.
I could go on with many more examples: I just wanted to emphasize events which took place under my direct witness. But, I did not have access to all the Masisi district, or Walikale, where the "rebels" had prohibited all form of access to foreigners. Testimonies that are coming from these areas are unanimous: there is a firm resolution from the "rebels" to annihilate refugees.
The most ferocious massacres took place in Walikale, where, according to a reliable witness present at the scene, "several tens of thousands of refugees have been exterminated".
The resemblance of stories and the similarity of experiences are striking. From the North to the South, the same methods are used, systematically, and in a planed manner.
The day following Goma takeover, the UNHCR offices in Goma, at the BDGL (Development Bank for the Great Lakes), were completely emptied of sensitive information, especially the computer equipment and the data that they contained. The lists of all the refugees, and where they were living, and all the confidential information that refugees had agreed to give in order to obtain food were brought to Gisenyi, Rwanda.
On December 20, 96, I talked to a high ranking official of the UNHCR in Goma, I reproached him for doing nothing to denounce the situation of mass killings. He responded: "We know very well that refugees are being murdered by tens of thousands in the forest, but what can we do, we are not an armed force; it was the role of the intervention force to intervene..." Why then this silence?...
REFUGEES MURDERED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS:
It is estimated in Goma that several hundreds thousands refugees have already died, either murdered - most of them -, or died from starvation, exhaustion, sickness... and thirst.
This would explain why, 200 to 250 thousands Rwandan refugees were able to arrive in TINGI-TINGI, AMISI and SHABUNDA, from the 653,000 Rwandan refugees who did not cross the border back to Rwanda. (Again we are excluding 117,000 refugees from Burundi).
With the inexorable advancing of "rebel troops" toward LUBUTU, it is likely that we will have to add 200,000 more refugees to this macabre list, from SHABUNDA town, which has already fallen, and TINGI-TINGI. Humanitarian organizations have already left. The TINGI-TINGI camp, already surrounded by now, will then be "cleaned", to use "rebel" leader Kabila expression.
Will the problem of 1994 "genocidaires" be finally be closed? Nothing is less certain, given that the "genocidaires", most of them Interahamwe, ex-FAR and ex-Presidential Guards, to whom most of the massacres are generally blamed, are both strong and young; They run fast, and disappear quickly in the bush when they are attacked.
The refugees that are being murdered are not the killers: they are families who fled at the pace of their children, and they flee in groups, thinking they are more secure that way.
3- ZAIRIAN HUTU POPULATIONS ARE THREATENED.
As soon as they entered the town of Goma, Friday November 01, 1996 soldiers started hunting down Zairian soldiers and Hutu refugees. Any refugee who was found was shot down. Every refugee was labeled "Interahamwe".
This schema has often become caricature. A Zairian Hutu family I know very well got itself rid of an eight-year old child very rapidly. This family had adopted him at age six during the Rwandan exodus of 1994. January 06, two soldiers came and threatened the family because it had given shelter to an "Interahamwe".
Very quickly, it is also the hunt of Zairian Hutu that began. These were not "Interahamwe" but "Magrivi". Magrivi is a Hutu organization similar to other organizations other tribes founded after the National Conference. Those organizations defended tribal ideas, especially recently with rising tensions and the Rwandan war.
Kidnapping increased particularly in the Goma area and in the whole northern Kivu in general where the Hutu community is strong with estimates ranging from 500 to 700,000 people
In Goma, every educated person or person with some wealth or anybody with some influence is directly targeted.
Rafael M. is for instance hunted down because he has contacts in Europe where he went to school. His contacts makes him an influential person. He must disappear. Because he cannot be found, it is his wife who is targeted. The military are hunting her down. Friends are hiding her. For how long? The old R. is also hunted down. He was director of a school in Birambizo in Masisi. He is a Hutu. Armed soldiers went to his house three times during the day. In the night of December 17, they came back again. They were seven well armed.
They knocked at the door of his house at midnight and called him by his name. He did not answer and had his children stay silent. Disappointed by this , the military went to his neighbor's house. His neighbor was a nineteen-year old Hutu, owner of a shop. They looted his shop and sent a bullet into his head. R. has moved elsewhere but he lives in fear. What I am saying happened in the district of Mabanga.
M. is a Hutu businessman. His tool for his work is his Toyota pick up. In the afternoon of January 12, soldiers went to his house. They wanted to buy his car and offered him $2,000.00. M. refused because on one hand the price was ridiculously low, on the other without a car M. is with out work. The same day, at eight in the evening, they came back and forced into his house. M. had enough time to escape from a back door. However, they found his twenty-year old son in the kitchen and summarily executed him.
Many people are kidnapped at night, others in broad daylight. In general people disappear for good. However some come back from their detention center after having been beaten up and told to shut up. Some are kidnapped, released, kidnapped again. Then, they disappear. Witnesses who live near the borders report a large number of cars crossing into Rwanda at night when borders are supposed to be closed. Also a number of Hutu are directly killed in Zaire, probably on Rutshuru road, in the bushes of Munigi, on both sides of the road.
In Goma and Rutshuru, the kidnapping have really reached alarming proportions in recent weeks. Even Bukavu is not spared. The last Hutus who are still in hiding are hunted down, be they Zairian or Rwandan, but also Zairians who for instance worked for refugees in an NGO. It is estimated that 4 to 5 persons disappear every night in Bukavu, compared to 40 per week in Goma.
The hunt of Hutu is carried out in cities but it is particularly in Masisi that the man hunt is massive. In fact the Hutu community of Masisi is very important, easily identified because it lives in villages of the same clan. Finally, during the unfortunate war in Masisi, stirred up since the Rwandan exodus of 1994, this population sometimes carried out violent activities against Tutsi and Hunde that led to the departure of all Tutsi who lived in Masisi and sometimes the massacres of Tutsi. (Mokoto for example, April 96)
"Rebels" have therefore carried out systematic and violent massacres at a large scale. In Jomba for example, they entered from Rwanda and killed every person they met. Very often they only met mothers and their children because youths had fled. It is these mothers who were executed, as was the case for the mother and the little sister of R. This wave of executions lasted about three weeks at the beginning of November.
Even the parish Minister, an influential person, known for his moderate opinions was kidnapped with four nuns who run the high school of Jomba, and were taken towards Uganda (customs office of Bunagana). They were never seen again.
In the village of Chanzu, Jomba Parish, people were called to a political meeting where the agenda of the new government was going to be discussed. The meeting started, they closed the doors and killed using a small hoe (Agafuni in Rwandese). Every person was struck once on the front. Remaining villagers counted 207 people. Bodies were tossed, some into mass grave, others into toilets, the head first.
Similar scenarios were repeated in all the sectors of Masisi, Matanda, Nyakariba, Birambizo, Katwe, Bibwe, Rutshuru, Rugari,etc.
In Birambizo, a Hutu fighter injured a "rebel" in early January. Soldiers sealed off the village, called the population to the village square in front of a church. They separated parents from their children. Then, "Rebels" killed all the children in front of their parents, and tossed the bodies behind the church. To retrieve the body and bury it, one had to pay $3.00. The majority of parents are subsistence farmers. They did not have that money.
In many places, massacres went along with the profanity of the sacred.. Thus in Nyakiriba two young Hutu priests were assassinated on December 24, 1996. Days after "rebels" were seen walking around wearing the priests' ceremonial (mass service) cloths. A similar account comes from Bukavu, Panzi. In Jomba, the tabernacle was riddled with bullets.
Everywhere church leaders and their families were targeted because they are influential in society. Thus a nun lost 18 family members in Matanda, and 15 in Nyakariba. Their names are on the top of the lists being circulated in Goma. The existence of those lists was confirmed to me by individuals associated with the new regime in Goma during a confidential conversation on January 23, 1997.
This ethnic cleansing is not just settling scores as it is the case in all war when the victor wipes out his old adversaries. Hutu are systematically targeted, moderates as well as extremists. The evidence of this systematic hunt of Hutu is the existence of lists of names.
4 - HOW TO EXPLAIN THE SILENCE OF THE MEDIA
The reader might wonder how, given the extreme gravity of the elements reported here, the international press has not much reported about this situation
There are many reasons to that:
1. The press has considered as over the question of refugees when they went back to Rwanda in large numbers from Mugunga, on November 15th, 16th, and 17th
Thereafter, there were almost no journalist in Goma and Bukavu. The media attention had shifted to Tanzania, where another massive return of Rwandan refugees was being prepared(engineered)
The competition between different media is at the origin of the inflation in the numbers of refugees returnees that were reported... ones fancier than others. For example, in the evening of November 16, G. Perez, Radio France International (RFI), reported that 400,000 refugees were waiting downtown in the city of Goma to be able to cross to Rwanda the following day on Saturday November 16th; that was twice the population of Goma! I was there; I estimate that there were no more than 25,000 refugees.
2. The " rebels" consider, and they are right, that the war has to be done on the media front the same way it is done on the battle ground, because it is in the West (Europe, North America) where decisive alliances for the victory on the ground are made.
The accesses to the war zones or any other sensitive zone are strictly controlled. For example, on Friday November 1st, all the journalists and organisms present in Goma have been evacuated from UNHCR premises where they had gathered, by Major David of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), while at the same time the fighting was raging in Goma.
There were only a few expatriates remaining in Goma; the town was strewn with corpses (more than 2,500 have been counted). The journalists were all at the border, prevented from entering, until all the corpses were buried, which took four days.
Thereafter, they were allowed to enter the city, CNN at the front line, and were queuing up to take pictures one by one of a decomposing corpse, with a military uniform, forgotten (?) at the Signers traffic circle.
The road to Mugunga has been closed until the " liberation "of the camp, where, as it has been seen, all the cameras from all over the world have been invited to withness the humiliation of Hutu refugees getting massmurdered and survivors getting treated like animals...
The road to Rutshuru has been closed to all Westerners (Zairian could pass) until December 6, 1996. That road leads to the camps of Kibumba, Katale and Kahindo (where 500,000 refugees had been living). No one knows what happened to the refugees in the camps of Katale and Kahindo, all we know is that these camps were heavily bombarded. What did happen of all of those refugees? No body seems to be interested to know.
Not a single journalist has been able to go beyond Sake, and visit Masisi for example, or Walikale, even though everybody knows that the refugees who fled west-ward took those roads on their way to Kisangani.
Until now, journalists are re-transmitting press releases from the military top command, broadcasting them without any verification, for they don't know better. This has already been seen during the Golf war. A war in the 20th century has at first to be on the media. The " rebels "distribute to the editorial staffs very well prepared press releases, with all the statistics already established
3. The eyewitnesses have to keep quiet; or can only speak under the cover of anonymity. If they speak, they risk death or expulsion, or they put in danger their staff working on the field
As for the journalists themselves, the ones who search their information outside the military top command circle, they are closely monitored, feel unsafe, and they do not hesitate to submit their articles to the new authorities for reaction before publication.
The very simple presence of journalists put in great danger eyewitnesses of these situations. When they interview someone in public or in a crowd, in general, someone else in this crowd is in charge of keeping an eye on what is being said: people know that and they prefer to say nothing. It is then difficult to have crucial and reliable information from the population
All these reasons make very difficult to have access to objective information, and impose to the eye witness to be very cautious, despite the high gravity of the situation
During contacts obtained at a very high political level, in Europe, I was surprised to see that, in general, decision makers are very well informed of the situation, also known in their chancelleries and embassies, even if they do not know the exact extent would one believe General Baril when he declared, in mid-December, at Sake, that not one single Rwandan refugee was remaining in Zaire, because after having spent a half-day on the road leading to Masisi, in a vehicle of a " rebel " officer, he had not met one single refugee?
This declaration, which sealed off the end of the multinational force, will have been the cause of the deaths of thousands among them. Could he ignore that? Diplomatic calculations prevent people from doing anything, the same way, paradoxically, the silence of the media does
Finally, everybody knows, but everybody keeps silent. And the refugees continue to die, women and children first.
© Published in Europe, February 19, 1997
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
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